Stephani Stephenson on sat 3 dec 05
Sales from your website... you just never can tell what the website
will bring in, or when...
I have found that every year is different .
The website is one of your resources, one of your smattering of crops.
Depending on the season, the climate, the conditions, you never know
exactly which crop will bring in the best harvest for any given year.
Websites absolutely let people find your work, and help educate and
update those who are already familiar with your work.
4-5 years ago I sold a lot of work over the web...lots of small orders
from $100- $500 .
this SAVED me because I was fairly new to S. California , had not built
up a local customer base
and was not selling through galleries or distributors.
the last few years the website sales have been down... I wonder
sometimes if it has to do with the amount of spam, viruses, etc.
I know my computer habits have changed because of it.... Time formerly
spent browsing is now spent weeding out junk.
This past year I did a lot of custom work, and more local work
but the biggest order, the largest project I have ever undertaken in
my entire life
came to me last year, from my absolute dream patron and patroness in
New Zealand.
They had never heard of me or seen my work, but found me via my
website.
the second and third largest projects in recent years also came via the
website. Projects in Texas and Idaho.
Last week I got a last minute request from a Canadian book publisher
They wanted to include approximately 20 photos of my work in an
interior design book. They had pages to fill in the resource appendix
of the book...If I could get him a CD with images in 2 days I would be
in.
He never heard of me but found my website.
I never know whether it will be large orders or small orders,
custom or stock work
local , national or international
Maybe if I chart it out for the next 50 years, I will still discover
that every year has it's own peculiar story to tell.
when I was a farmer, monoculture made me nervous
So I followed the old advice.
same with selling ceramics
My site is pretty basic, not set up for shopping,etc.
It is homemade.
but I believe that sometimes you just have to get in the water if you
want to swim. Get on the dance floor and start dancing!
The nice thing about websites is you can improve them, nurse them ,
tweak them, change them, grow them, nudge them....
It isn't like you have to bank everything on a $5,000 brochure anymore
Get it up, Get it out there, don't feel embarrassed about it.
Yeah, it can be better, it will be better
Your work will grow, you'll grow
but it is what you do at the time you are doing it.
It is a fairly good direct marketing tool. YOU get to represent your
work, and you can decide pretty much how you want to do it.
You may find yourself refining it over time, but you won't know exactly
how till you get it up and running.
Also , the inquiries you get will provide you with valuable feedback.
I still have a lot to learn , but every single year, the website has
proved invaluable me,
It is one of the of the best items in my possibles bag....
At the end of each year when I realize, dumbfounded...wow, did I manage
to make a living another year as a full time ceramist?!
the website figures into it
Stephani Stephenson
steph@revivaltileworks.com
http://www.revivaltileworks.com
Graham Mercer on mon 5 dec 05
Spot on Stephani!
There is a lot more to 'having a website' than directly selling your work.
As you point out it is part of your range of tools for spreading the word
about your art.
My experience is similar to yours, I do not sell work directly from my
website, but it does definitely bring me enquiries. For example my Fossil
Pots (which I love making) are not big movers here in Australia, but purely
because of my website I continue to receive enquiries from overseas, mainly
the USA.
It is also a very convenient way to exhibit your work to people that are
located at a distance from you, should the need arise.
IMHO, potters generally tend to be somewhat reluctant to embrace new
technologies, websites are a prime example. This is not to say that a
website is a requirement for every potter, but I believe that they are a
great way of promoting yourself, and in the process, helping to 'nudge' the
ceramic arts field into utilising new technology. This can only help in the
ongoing struggle to raise the public awareness and acceptance of ceramic art
into the mainstream, which in turn benefits all of us.
By the way, both your website and your work are great - worthy of being
'discovered on the web'! Keep up the good work. ;-)
Cheers,
Graham Mercer
Melbourne, Australia
www.grahammercer.com.au
Ritta James on tue 13 dec 05
Stephani, I totally agree with you. I have a small business with bead
jewelry and I cannot imagine that I'd sell so much per month without having
a website. The best thing is I spent nothing on the website - just time :)!
I made it using sitekreator.com - a free online website builder. They offer
beautiful templates, 10Mbs storage, forms, forums, ... , and all this for
FREE! Most of my clients heard about me from the website and although I
don't have a shopping cart yet, I can admit that my business grows mostly
because of the website. It's the most valuable thing that I have without
even paying.
June June on tue 13 dec 05
Ritta and gang,
I have develpoed a website for our local art co-op but can't get much traffic. have included our website on all our business info ie:bus cards, flyers, advertisements etc. Any ideas??? we are a co-op and have very minimal funds for advertising.
any suggestions would be appreciated.
june
-----Original Message-----
From: Ritta James
To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
Sent: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:29:27 +0200
Subject: Re: Website Sales and all that
Stephani, I totally agree with you. I have a small business with bead
jewelry and I cannot imagine that I'd sell so much per month without having
a website. The best thing is I spent nothing on the website - just time :)!
I made it using sitekreator.com - a free online website builder. They offer
beautiful templates, 10Mbs storage, forms, forums, ... , and all this for
FREE! Most of my clients heard about me from the website and although I
don't have a shopping cart yet, I can admit that my business grows mostly
because of the website. It's the most valuable thing that I have without
even paying.
______________________________________________________________________________
Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at melpots@pclink.com.
Stephani Stephenson on tue 13 dec 05
June wrote:
I have develpoed a website for our local art co-op but can't get much
traffic. have included our website on all our business info ie:bus
cards, flyers, advertisements etc. Any ideas??? we are a co-op and
have very minimal funds for advertising.
any suggestions would be appreciated.
june
June, I don't know 'how much' traffic is enough traffic for you... my
first question would be , are you showing up on internet searches?
All I can offer is the little bit I know, which maybe you already know!
I think people are more likely enter your business name in the search
window, rather than enter your website verbatim.
But, a few things I learned which I do believe brought me some traffic:
1. Make sure you have good keywords coded into each page, otherwise no
one will find you via a search engine.
2. register your site with various search engines. Many of them are
free, you just have to go to their websites and fill out the search
engine submission forms.
Sometimes it takes awhile, I have heard a couple of months, after you
submit your website, to show up on the searches
3. If you don't have the time to submit to search engines yourself,
you can also pay for a search engine submission service.
There are many to choose from
..register.com, web.com.
. Generally they cost less than $5 dollars a month, $40-$100 per year,
something like that....
they submit your site to some astronomical number of search engines (
400 or so ) and update it monthly...
It seems to me this is more value per dollar than some other forms of
advertising
Stephani Stephenson
steph@revivaltileworks.com
http://www.revivaltileworks.com
Graham Mercer on thu 15 dec 05
Hi June,
Had a quick look at the website to which you have been referring and would
like to offer the following comments.
IN MY OPINION there are a few things that you could do to improve the
'professionalism' and accessibility of your website, which may assist in
retaining visitors once they arrive at your site.
Firstly optimise your images. Your shopping page loads EXTREMELY slowly (and
I am using ADSL) mainly because your images are absolutely huge!
You should have two versions of each image, a thumbnail, (which is the tiny
images you click on), and the larger image for viewing. The thumbnails
should be compressed to a file size of something around 5KB - 10KB, and the
larger images can be compressed to around 90KB without losing image quality.
At the moment you are using the same image for both purposes, just scaling
the thumbnail to a smaller size, and the average file size of those images
is over 350KB!!! This change alone will make your pages load MUCH faster,
thus retaining the visitors that may currently leave in frustration. Also
consider adding the "ALT" tags to the image files, this is the little
'pop-up' text that appears when you hold your cursor over an image. Search
engines rely heavily on these tags to index your site because they cannot
'read' images, so they use the 'ALT' tag instead.
The storefront page is very 'squished' up, perhaps written with the 800x600
screen in mind? These days the vast majority of visitors are using screen
resolutions of at least 1024x768 if not bigger, so you could afford to
spread the page out a little horizontally to remove some of the clutter.
There seems to be a variation in the fonts and font sizes that you use
throughout the sales table, consistency is a key element in keeping the
pages looking clean and professional.
The embedded music file of 'Fleur de Lys' is a pleasant addition, but if a
visitor is on the page for a while looking at all you have to offer THEN the
music can become annoying. Add an option on the page to turn the music
on/off and you will keep more of your visitors happy.
Please don't take offence, but you could do with running a spell checker
over the pages, also some of the words are "correct" but in the wrong
context.
E.g. Pottery Angle instead of Angel
Sights instead of sites
Insized instead of incised
Clok instead of clock
Encised instead of incised
Muchrooms instead of mushrooms etc
Now that I have made those negative observations PLEASE let me stress that I
think you are doing a great job with the website overall. Just having the
commitment to create and manage a site is highly commendable in itself. You
are doing the right thing by getting out there and participating in the
internet, it is definitely a great addition to your marketing and
recognition tools. Stick with it and don't get discouraged. Take whatever
you like from the feedback from folks such as myself and the other posters
that have been offering assistance, and also feel free to ignore whatever
you choose.
The beauty of Clayart is in the ability to 'throw something out there' for
discussion and get feedback from the myriad members that are only too
willing to help a fellow member out. I went through the exact same process a
couple of years ago when I first launched my pottery website, on reflection
my initial design was way off the mark, but with the assistance and
suggestions from the many members that replied I have wholly changed the
look and feel of it now.
Feel free to drop me an email if you would like any further info, (or just
to tell me to pull my head in if you prefer!) and I will be only too happy
to oblige (either way ;-) ).
Cheers,
Graham
Melbourne, Australia
www.grahammercer.com.au
June June on thu 15 dec 05
Graham, Thanks for your input, I am collecting alot of suggestions and will be researching the hows quickley. Love your sight and have added it to my favorites.
Tanks again and you can keep your head up high, I appreciate every suggestion,
June Kinsinger
www.archwayartisans.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Graham Mercer
To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
Sent: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 19:57:40 +1100
Subject: Re: Website Sales and all that
Hi June,
Had a quick look at the website to which you have been referring and would
like to offer the following comments.
IN MY OPINION there are a few things that you could do to improve the
'professionalism' and accessibility of your website, which may assist in
retaining visitors once they arrive at your site.
Firstly optimise your images. Your shopping page loads EXTREMELY slowly (and
I am using ADSL) mainly because your images are absolutely huge!
You should have two versions of each image, a thumbnail, (which is the tiny
images you click on), and the larger image for viewing. The thumbnails
should be compressed to a file size of something around 5KB - 10KB, and the
larger images can be compressed to around 90KB without losing image quality.
At the moment you are using the same image for both purposes, just scaling
the thumbnail to a smaller size, and the average file size of those images
is over 350KB!!! This change alone will make your pages load MUCH faster,
thus retaining the visitors that may currently leave in frustration. Also
consider adding the "ALT" tags to the image files, this is the little
'pop-up' text that appears when you hold your cursor over an image. Search
engines rely heavily on these tags to index your site because they cannot
'read' images, so they use the 'ALT' tag instead.
The storefront page is very 'squished' up, perhaps written with the 800x600
screen in mind? These days the vast majority of visitors are using screen
resolutions of at least 1024x768 if not bigger, so you could afford to
spread the page out a little horizontally to remove some of the clutter.
There seems to be a variation in the fonts and font sizes that you use
throughout the sales table, consistency is a key element in keeping the
pages looking clean and professional.
The embedded music file of 'Fleur de Lys' is a pleasant addition, but if a
visitor is on the page for a while looking at all you have to offer THEN the
music can become annoying. Add an option on the page to turn the music
on/off and you will keep more of your visitors happy.
Please don't take offence, but you could do with running a spell checker
over the pages, also some of the words are "correct" but in the wrong
context.
E.g. Pottery Angle instead of Angel
Sights instead of sites
Insized instead of incised
Clok instead of clock
Encised instead of incised
Muchrooms instead of mushrooms etc
Now that I have made those negative observations PLEASE let me stress that I
think you are doing a great job with the website overall. Just having the
commitment to create and manage a site is highly commendable in itself. You
are doing the right thing by getting out there and participating in the
internet, it is definitely a great addition to your marketing and
recognition tools. Stick with it and don't get discouraged. Take whatever
you like from the feedback from folks such as myself and the other posters
that have been offering assistance, and also feel free to ignore whatever
you choose.
The beauty of Clayart is in the ability to 'throw something out there' for
discussion and get feedback from the myriad members that are only too
willing to help a fellow member out. I went through the exact same process a
couple of years ago when I first launched my pottery website, on reflection
my initial design was way off the mark, but with the assistance and
suggestions from the many members that replied I have wholly changed the
look and feel of it now.
Feel free to drop me an email if you would like any further info, (or just
to tell me to pull my head in if you prefer!) and I will be only too happy
to oblige (either way ;-) ).
Cheers,
Graham
Melbourne, Australia
www.grahammercer.com.au
______________________________________________________________________________
Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at melpots@pclink.com.
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